Endangered Species Act
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There is a lot in the news about the potential listing of sage grouse under the Endangered Species Act. Western politicians are using heated rhetoric about how a listing would destroy their economies, and the “western way of life” (read death and destruction to native wildlife). And in good western tradition, they blame the federal…
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Channel Island fox population grows from 50 to over 2000 in just 9 years- There are many species of fox around the world — 37 or so. Those fox with a naturally limited geographic range are likely to become the most quickly threatened by extinction. So it was with the (California) Channel Island Fox, which…
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Bozeman, Mont.—Conservationists are offering a $6,500 reward for information leading to the arrestand conviction of the person(s) responsible for killing a grizzly bear in the Centennial Mountains ofsouthwest Montana last fall. The collar of “Grizzly #726” was recovered from a stream on USDA Sheep Experiment Stationproperty on September 12, 2012. He had been fitted with…
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Interior Secretary Sally Jewell received two letters today from conservation scientists criticizing a draft Rule that would remove protections for wolves across the lower 48 states. One letter came from the American Society of Mammalogists, the other from 16 conservation scientists. Signatories include several scientists who conducted the research the government relied upon in the…
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By George Wuerthner State Fish and Game agencies are in the midst of a funding and mission crisis. They appear unable to adapt to shifting political and demographic changes much as the Republican Party is failing to adjust to new voter realities. The crisis is nowhere more evident than in their attitudes towards predators like…
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Hailey, ID. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed an Endangered Species Act (ESA) listing rule and critical habitat designation for the Gunnison sage-grouse that will designate the species as Endangered and provide 1.7 million acres of critical habitat in Colorado and Utah. Gunnison sage-grouse (Centrocercus minimus) has a more restricted range than the closely-related…
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Due to petitions of a number of environmental groups, the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) appears likely to list the wolverine under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Once found across much of the West and northern-tier states from Minnesota to Maine, wolverine are now limited to a few isolated populations in the western United…
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Move makes Montana’s wolverine season doubly dead- In a surprise move last Monday (Jan. 7), the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) announced that on Jan. 18 it would issue a proposed rule protecting wolverines under the Endangered Species Act. This probably means it will be proposed as a threatened species instead of its current…